


Belly of the Beast

by likeadeuce



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-14
Updated: 2010-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:39:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Wesley became the big boss?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belly of the Beast

Of the many perks enjoyed by the CEO of the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram &amp; Hart, none excites more general envy than the penthouse. It is spacious, luxurious, and furnished to the resident's specifications with everything a human or demon could desire. The location in the center of downtown Los Angeles is, of course, ideal, although this is almost beside the point. He could go a week, a month, a year, without leaving the building. If he wants anything, he can get it to come to him. "Anything" in this case, including people. He can conduct business from his bedroom, if he so desires.

All of which adds a few extra complications to the job duties of his personal assistant. So thinks the lady in question as she balances a stack of documents and a mug of the CEO's favorite beverage on a silver tray and raps on the heavy oak door. "Boss?" calls Harmony Kendall. "I got all your stuff."

"I invite you in." Harmony rolls her eyes, pushes the door open with her hip, then her back, and turns around to see him lying in bed, in a totally three-decades-ago dressing gown, with the newspaper folded across his knee. "Thank you, Harmony," he says, taking the English breakfast tea. "And no need to stand on ceremony. You've known me long enough to call me Wesley."

Stand on ceremony? What the hell does that mean, anyway? What kind of ceremony? Where would you be standing?

Seeing her confusion, he says, "We don't have to be so formal." He raises an eyebrow. "Considering."

"Well," she says, handing Wesley Wyndam-Pryce his tea and – is that what a scone is? "Since you mention it. Wesley. It's not like you have to keep inviting me into your bedroom. Unless you just enjoy the melodrama."

"Now there you have me." He puts down the paper and manages a smile as he bites into his scone. "Speaking of melodrama, has our liaison deigned to make her scheduled appearance?"

Deigned? Harmony should never have mentioned that she was reading Improve Your Power Vocabulary. "I know what that word means," she says, hoping he can sense her disapproval. "Liaison. And no." Wesley has the tray now, and so she puts her hands on her hips and gives him a look. "Your immoral liaison is late, as usual."

Wesley hasn't been out of the bedroom for several days now, and he clearly hasn't bothered to shave in that time. Under all that scruffiness, the way his mouth twitches when he smiles is totally cute. "Aren't you being a bit of a prude, considering that you're a vampire?"

Harmony pouts. "I don't trust her."

He gives her a long look with those blue eyes. "Neither do I," he finally says. He pronounces it in that British way, like NYE-ther. For a second, his accent reminds her of Spike. She thinks of that rumor she heard, that Spike died but he really didn't and now he's running around with Angel and the whole Sunnydale gang, helping collect new slayers. Oh, I bet he loves THAT job, she thinks. Not that Spike would ever say a grammatical word like "neither."

"It's just," Harmony goes on. "I do a really good job here, and it's like – when she shows up you drop everything."

Wesley eyes her carefully, and then his lips curl into a slow smile. "You're jealous. And you're right. You've done a very good job." Putting down the tray, he slowly stretches out his arm, showing a series of long, parallel scars, extending from the elbow to the wrist. Brilliant white scars. He reaches into his nightstand and pulls out a jeweled silver dagger.

Trying not to stare too greedily, Harmony gulps, "Really? It's not even payday."

"You've been a very good girl." And then he presses the point of the knife to his skin, and pushes it in. She tries not to lick her lips as the blood blossoms against his pale flesh. He only winces for the first second, and she hears him gasp, "I have seen drunkards do more than this in sport."

Harmony has no idea what he's talking about.* She just gets on her knees, shakes into game face, and presses his arm to her lips. Greedily, she draws in the warm blood, sucking as quickly as she can. She knows Wesley has charmed the knife so that the wounds cauterize almost instantly, and she has to go in fast.

They have played this game for months now; it's the only human blood she tastes anymore. Not that feeding on humans is forbidden, under the new regime. Not exactly. But Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is a man who values discipline. He has explained this to Harmony. It's not the vampire's taste for human blood that makes it a liability. It is the inability control that bloodlust. And Harmony is working on her control. She is working very very hard and some days, like today, there is a reward.

Wesley gasps and buries a hand deep in Harmony's hair as she draws deeply from his arm, tasting the salt warmth of his blood, a taste she knows now as well as his voice or his profile. This is something she never could have learned, if she still lived like other vampires. She never imagined that she could learn to crave the taste of one man's blood.

"Really now, you couldn't wait for me?" says a voice from the doorway. Harmony freezes. Well, if it isn't the fucking Immoral Liaison. She stops drinking, but she doesn't lift her head. "Or are you really trying to turn me on?"

"Lilah," says Wesley, in a voice that's way too even, too soft, too steady.

That fucking bitch, thinks Harmony. She has to ruin everything.

*

The tall silhouette hung in Wesley's heavy oak doorway.

"Lilah," he said coldly.

"A piece of her." She stepped forward and leered toward the blonde head bent over Wesley's bedside. "Am I interrupting something?"

Wesley pressed his palm against Harmony's forehead and pushed her lightly away. "Not at all." Gripping a hand to the inside of his elbow, he bent the arm close to his body. A narrow sliver of blood dripped down and hit the sheet, quickly becoming lost on the shimmering dark fabric.

"Classy." Lilah strode toward him, legs rippling under the skin-tight sheath of a skirt. The dim light glinted off a brooch on the breast of her ivory blouse, and a red scarf tied at her throat gave the only token of color. Harmony stood, and her face melted into its human shape, as she rubbed Wesley's blood from her lips.

Wesley still sat in bed, dressing gown over his shoulders and sheet pulled up to his waist. Lilah lowered herself onto the edge of the bed and, without looking at Harmony, said, "Leave."

Harmony's mouth tightened, and she hissed out, "You are not the boss of me."

"She's right, Lilah." He shifted to look at Harmony. "Leave." When the vampire gave a short, impatient huff, Wesley gestured for her to lean forward. She looked warily to each side, but obeyed. He ran a hand over her hair, and brushed a soft kiss on the crown of her head. "You're a treasure, Harm. I mean that."

"Hmmm." As she gathered the tray, the girl gave a hard look at Lilah, who smirked in return.

"Take off your clothes," said the voice from the bed.

Lilah jerked around to stare at Wesley, who returned her look coolly and rolled his hand in a "haven't got all day" gesture.

"In front of her?" Lilah demanded.

Harmony's hand shook a little over the tea things, but she barely let anything slip, and only stole one quick look at the other woman.

"You know how this works, Lilah." In a 'bored now' voice. "You retain perpetual consciousness and possession of that, I must say, rather exceptional body; in return, you are obliged to obey Wolfram and Hart in all things. And at this moment, in this room, I am Wolfram and Hart."

"The only reason I put up with this –" Lilah began, easing slowly to her feet.

"Is because you have no choice?" suggested Wesley

"Is because of the times–" She brought her hand down to the side of her skirt. "When what you want is to do what I want. Which," she said with a pointed look at Harmony, "Is most of the time." Lilah pulled the zipper, and the skirt slid down her legs and pooled on floor. She wore nothing underneath. The low light from his bedroom lamp caught the marble flesh of her legs, and a scraggly thatch of hair at the meeting of her thighs.

Harmony rolled her eyes. "Gross." Her heels clicked on the hardwood floors as she walked to the door.

Lilah shrugged out of her silk blouse and sat back on the bed. "I must say. She is an interesting choice for the inner circle."

"I'm not sleeping with her," said Wesley.

"Oh. Well. That makes it all perfectly normal."

"Normal isn't a place where any of us live. Anyway. I like her." Releasing the pressure on his arm, Wesley moved toward Lilah and gripped her shoulders. She leaned forward, allowing him to unfasten her brassiere. "I've known her since Sunnydale. She's a sweet girl." His hands went to the scarf on her neck.

"A reminder of more innocent times? So what's this, then?" Before his fingers could unfasten the knot of the silk fabric, Lilah reached in and slapped the inside of his elbow. Wesley drew back and gripped his arm as she leaned closer to him. "Let me guess. You're collecting scars and nerve damage, until you can't feel the first one anymore."

"It's not my gun hand." Wesley tucked the arm close to his body. "I'll survive."

Her lip curled. "Cleopatra used to run an empire out of her bedroom, as I recall. She also liked to stick sharp things into flesh, just for fun. But not so much her own flesh. Even your Puritan ancestors would just lock the door and flagellate themselves."

"I never could do that," Wesley answered in a deadpan. "Not flexible enough. Though since you mentioned it. . ." He pulled back the sheet and moved to the edge of the bed, then pointed at the floor.

"Dear God." Lilah pushed her long hair over her shoulders and sank to her knees in front of him. "This is my eternal torment. Going down on a man who makes polysyllabic sex puns."

"Suck it up," he suggested. "Is that better?" Lilah rolled her eyes before lowering her mouth. Wesley leaned back on his hands, not moving, letting out breath in a few sharp gasps. "All right." He finally spoke, touching a finger to her forehead. "You can – get on the bed. Now."

She released him and rose, sitting down briefly, then spinning out of his reach to lie above the sheets. He made a flipping motion with his hand. "Other way."

Lilah turned over, and rose, spreading her knees and bracing herself against the bedframe with her hands. "And yes, Wes. Thank you, I know I was good. I admit, it is sort of cheating that I don't have to breathe but. . ."

Wesley just turned over and put his hands on her ass, then slid them up around her waist, and pulled his body over her. She shook with the force of his movement, and he kept at it for some time, almost silent except for the odd heavy breath that seemed forced from him, like air from a deflating tire. Lilah breathed a series of feline cries, climaxing with loud long note like a screaming panther. Wesley followed, almost immediately, a harsh strangled moan, and a moment after that, he lay on his back beside her. She turned to watch him over her shoulder, as she slid out of the pose on her hands and knees, to slide down next to him. He turned a curious look to her and, as if in response, she clasped a thumb and forefinger around his wrist and guided his hand down, to press between her legs. She pushed his fingers into her, and when she pulled them out, a red streak ran from his nail to the back of his palm.

"What this body's been through," she said. "Drawing blood is sort of an achievement. Although of course. . ." She released his hand and reached up to undo the scarf around her throat. The cloth slipped away, revealing a gash of a deeper richer red than the silk that covered it. "You've had practice."

Wesley's eyes flickered over the cut. He lowered his blood washed hand to his own throat. "Why look, honey. We match."

"Why, thanks, sweetie," she answered, with the same falsely chipper tone. "You were great when you were banging me until I bled. I just wish I could, you know – feel it."

Wesley smiled and pressed her hand to the scarred flesh of his arm. "I knew you were jealous."

"Of your Vampire Barbie?" She picked up his hand and slipped the bloodied fingers into her mouth.

"Of this." He pressed his arm against her chest. "And this." Touching the jagged gash across his throat. "I must say, you're quite the case study in damnation. From the classics on, we've assumed that hell is all about pain. Yet for someone like you, it seems, a sensualist if you will, the manifestation of punishment would be the complete absence of. . .Oooh." An involuntary gasp escaped him as she ran her lips down the length of his fingers.

Around the edges of his hand, she mumbled, "Are you finished?"

"Not in the least." She sucked his fingers back in and bit down, hard. Wesley didn't make a sound, but after a moment, tears welled up in his eyes. He sucked in his breath, still silent, then finally reached out his free hand and gripped her cheeks on each side. He pushed in on the muscle until her jaw slackened, he pulled his fingers free.

"No, lover," she said, watching his hand clench into a fist. "I think you're the one with the pain habit."

"Pressure," he mused, looking at her with the cold curiosity of a scientist. "Your body responds to pressure and – you're warm, not like Harmony, so presumably, to heat and cold. Your heart beats, so there's circulation. And yet. . ."

"No pain," she says. "No pleasure either, for that matter. Which begs the question. What kind of man only sleeps with a woman who he knows is faking?"

"Which in the turn begs the question. Why would I care if you can feel it? Men like the pretty noises women make, darling. What does it matter if they're connected to anything?"

"Traditionally?" She lay on her side and stretched an arm over her head. "I'd say men care about making a woman scream with pleasure, because they like to know that they can."

"I didn't realize that my ability to make you scream was in question. The upside of shagging a self-absorbed nymphomaniac is that you always know where you stand. If she's not having a good time, she won't be coming back."

Lilah stretched and curled, then laid her head against Wesley's shoulder. "So it doesn't bother you," she muttered, her voice half-tangled in a yawn, "that you're fucking an echo?"

"On the contrary." He ran a hand up the back of her neck and stopped, curling his fingers at the base of her skull. "Given current circumstances, I'd say it's ideal."

"Of course." She rolled up on her elbow and nodded, then spoke with a passable imitation of his clipped British accent. "The perfect arrangement. The girl who's already dead. Nothing to hurt. Nothing to break. No risk of messy attachments."

"The nail on the proverbial head, my dear. Except that it has nothing to do with your current existentially problematic state." Leaning close, he spoke in her ear. "You've always been the thing too fucked up to break any worse. What do you think I ever saw in you?"

"You go to hell!" She jerked away and sat up, starting a mad scramble to find her clothes. He started to laugh, and she turned slowly to face him.

"Lilah, Lilah." He lay back against the pillow, hands folded behind his head. "There is, after all, still something left in you to break."

She leveled her eyes at him. "You think you've figured something out about me? Fine." Pulling on her blouse, she flipped her hair over her face as she bent down to fasten the buttons. "You're not fooling me. Next time I see you, you'll beg me to top you again. You'll be itching for someone to put you in your place, after a few days of posing as a big dog with your new best pals at the Circle of the Black Thorn."

"What?" Wesley barked, turning swiftly toward her. "Do you know something?"

She let the blouse fall open and leaned back on her hands. "Just maybe I do. Just maybe, lover, while you were thinking up new ways to insult the girl who's sitting on your dick. Maybe you forgot. I'm the one who called this meeting. Maybe it's time for you to do a little favor for me."

*

Lilah would never admit this to anyone, least of all to Wesley, but she felt an unmistakable surge of pride in her boy. And no mistake about it. He was her boy. Going on two years now as the most special of her special projects – and, by far, the most successful. From thrown-off sidekick to Circle of the Black Thorn, in a matter of months. Provided that, between the two of them, they could ease the Senior Partners' minds on a few small points.

"What do you know about the Black Thorn?" Wesley asked her, sitting up in bed and pulling the blankets up to his waist.

Lilah, now on her feet and fully clothed, tilted her head and cast him an amused look. Now that they were talking business, he was the one who looked silly, and he needed to know that she knew it. "Rumors. Gossip. Innuendo. You know how the Senior Partners like to play their information games. And even they don't control the membership of the Circle."

"Yes, I have noticed some information games." He gave her a hard look, and she had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. "But you know their say-so will go a long way."

"And you know," she said evenly, "That mine will go a long way with them. Don't forget to thank me, lover, that you've gotten this far. You've been a dark horse, to put it mildly. They wanted Angel from the beginning."

"Angel." His voice came out in a low growl, and now Lilah was really fighting back a smile. It wouldn't do to let anybody, Wesley included, realize how much she enjoyed this part of the job. How much she liked the Wyndam-Pryce Project, in general.

"Peace, Blue Eyes," she soothed. "You're preaching to the anti-Angelic choir. For years now, I've been telling the Partners they backed the wrong guy. They're finally starting to see things my way."

"I imagine the work I've done at this office had a little to do with it." His lip curled. "I'd hate to think all the treachery, murder, and warmongering has been for nothing."

"I guess," she breezed, although she more than guessed. From the moment two years ago, when she stepped over his threshold and he laughed in her face, she had known that Wesley Wyndam-Pryce suffered from a serious case of underestimation. But even she had been surprised at the ruthless efficiency of the new regime. Still, it wouldn't do for him to know she was impressed, and she had points of her own to make. "But you're ahead of schedule. The Senior Partners had always planned to nominate the new CEO for the Circle. But you weren't even supposed to know it existed. It wasn't our fault that you learned about it. What the Powers that Be, or rather, Cordelia, thought a man like you would do with that information. . ."

"The Powers are only as perceptive as their conduit, and it so happens that I reside in one of Cordelia's blind spots. They sent her back here on a mission, but she didn't know what kind of man a man like me was anymore. She thought she was talking to someon she used to know. Now, possibly, if she had paid more attention to me over the past few years –"

And now Lilah couldn't hold back her laughter, nor did she want to. "If she'd paid more attention to you? Then – what? She would know you were a ruthless desperate man or –" she sunk onto the side of the bed again and gave him a teasing smile. "Maybe you wouldn't be a ruthless desperate man. You think this every night, lying there alone? If only Cordelia had cared enough, she could have saved you from your long day's journey into the belly of the beast. . ."

"Spare me."

Wesley sounded more bored than angry with the suggestion, and Lilah felt a surprising jolt of relief. As though she really hoped that her barb hadn't found a mark. As though she cared whether he still cared for Cordelia. Which was ridiculous although, if she had to, she could blame it on what Wesley called her existentially uncertain state. When she had lost all sensation in her body, maybe that did leave her just slightly open to unexpected thrusts of emotion. Just as, she thought, Wesley would have to start cutting deeper and deeper into his own flesh in order to compensate for all the emotional nerve centers he had to kill off in order to do his job.

Or maybe, Lilah thought, That's all silly sentimental bullshit that you never would have believed when you were alive. A collection of brimstone-induced hallucination, and I should just concentrate on the job I came here to do. "It's not me who thinks that way, lover. But you should hear the things people are saying. My favorite rumor --" She put her hands down on the bed and leaned closer. "The whole Bloodthirsty Sultan act you've got going is some big charade. So that you can get into the Black Thorn and. . ." His eyes followed her tongue as it moved around her lips. "Bring it down from the inside."

Lilah wasn't sure exactly what reaction she had expected. But when Wesley dissolved into a coughing fit that turned into spasms of laughter, she knew that wasn't it. "Dear Lord," he said, once he had composed himself. "I know that it's the fashion in certain circles to consider me mad, but surely no one thinks I'm daft enough to concoct a plan like that?"

"I didn't say that I thought it, lover. I am, as in all things, on your team. But. . ." And here was the point that troubled her, more than she was ready to let on. "You did manage to deceive me on a similar point once before and you do have a history of being. . ."

"A good guy?" he interrupted.

No need to let him think she was playing too nicely. "I was going to go with compulsive traitor." She shrugged. "To-may-to, To-mah-to."

Just for a second, he drew in a breath, and she knew her blow had hit home. But when he spoke, his voice was almost supernaturally calm. "So what do the senior partners require as evidence of my loyalty?"

"This isn't about the partners. They'll back you in the end, I think. As long as I give them reassurance. I would like to be able to give that. Reassurance. But if I do, then -- well, you saw Donnie Brasco. It's my ass on the line, and I can imagine. The Partners will find a way for me to experience pain, as long as it suits them. So if you could just give a little something – " Her eyes rose to look at him. "For my own piece of mind."

The line of Wesley's mouth hardened, and he returned her glare. "They're off-limits. You know that."

"I didn't even say –"

"Fred and Charles. It's easy enough to figure. Their situation is not negotiable, and it has nothing to do with any soft gooey center under my hard shell." He leveled his gaze at her. "It has to do with your bosses keeping their word. Fred and Gunn were merely associates, pulled in, for the most part, by circumstances beyond their control. The deal that I made when I came here was contingent on preserving their safety."

"Of course," Lilah soothed. "Your friends – if that's really the word for them – are peacefully at work – what is it? Breeding puppies? Running an ice cream parlor in Topeka?"

"I have no idea," he said stonily. "But I am assured that Cyvus Vail is the very best at what he does. I trust he has managed to remove them completely from all contact with or memory of apocalypses, vampires, and alternative dimensions."

"And incidentally? I'm sure that they are happy together in a way that you will never be with anyone."

"Fine," he said wearily. "There you have me. Allow me a single sentimental gesture that none of the recipients will ever know about or thank me for?"

"Fine," she answered. "Anyway, I wasn't talking about Fred and Gunn," said Lilah.

"Cordelia's gone," he mused. "There was nothing that even the firm could do for her. So surely, still, you can't think that I have any attachment to – anyone else."

"I'm glad to hear you say that." Lilah almost bubbled over with the news she had been saving. "Because as of this morning's staff meeting, Wolfram and Hart has revised its official position regarding one Angel."

Wesley's face showed nothing, though he did seem to take an extra moment to gather his words. "High time. Search and destroy, I take it? His key apocalypse having passed, Angel himself having turned down the opportunity to work with the firm, it can do no earthly good to have him out there – where is he, exactly?"

This time it was Lilah who waited a moment too long, and she cursed herself for giving too much away.

Before she could summon an answer, Wesley smiled. "You have absolutely no idea where Angel is. Or how to get at him." He shook his head. "Well, I don't either. And yes, I have considered that in some annoying Joseph Campbell type of way, the two of us are probably destined to fight to the death before it's all said and done. But there's nothing I can do about it now."

"That doesn't bother you?" Lilah asked.

"I've got no love left for Angel," he answered flatly. "He could be here. He had the choice, and I imagine things would be running a bit differently if he were in charge. But he couldn't bear to dirty his hands with Wolfram &amp; Hart's business. Not even –" Wesley shook his head.

"To save his son?"

"Yes," said Wesley. "It turned out that one of us was able to make difficult choices to help preserve Connor, and the other was not. How is the boy working out, anyway?"

"He's limber," Lilah answered, and when Wesley shot a look at her, amended, "Active. Most days you wouldn't even know he's dead."

"I could say the same for you," he answered smoothly. "Angel let his son die. And they tried to tell me the prophecy was false. At least I got him a few good years in there."

"Good years in a hell dimension?" Lilah asked. "And couldn't you just as easily say that it was the traumatic experience following his kidnapping that drove him to a mental state in which he was inclined to . . ." She shook her head. "Never mind. You'll need to be prepared to deal with Angel, one day. But you're right. There's nothing I can ask you to do right now. And besides, as our friend Mr. Campbell would agree, that's a struggle that belongs at the end of your journey. I'm thinking more of a – small gesture. Personal even. For me." She reached over and felt his thigh through the silken sheets.

Wesley swallowed. "I'm sure we can work something out to our mutual satisfaction."

*

Harmony had no idea what was taking them so damn long in there. Well, okay. She kind of had an idea, but it squicked the hell out of her. All right, Harmony was undead. She wasn't really one to skip stones. But Lilah was just plain dead. Harmony knew perfectly well that she wasn't anything to Wesley but a source of tea and phone messages and the occasional brain-asphyxiating arm-suck.

Still, Wesley was a pretty amazing guy. Those eyes and those hands and that accent. Plus he had a motorcycle and was just amazingly smart. He ought to be able to get a nice girl who was actually, you know, alive. Like Amy Madison, who had just started working as a paralegal. OK, she and Harm hadn't been best friends in high school, but to be fair, Harmony had had a really active social life, and Amy had spent a couple years as a rodent in there. Still, they'd been for drinks a couple times and Amy had told funny stories like about this really creepy curse she put on Willow Rosenberg. It seemed like exactly the kind of story Wesley would like, and Amy was obviously really smart. Or maybe Wesley ought to be dating guys instead of girls, maybe that was the problem, in which case that adorable Knox guy down at the lab –

The phone buzzed and Harmony picked it up. "Mr. Wyndam-Pryce's – oh, hi, Wesley. Done with your liasioning yet?"

"Not in the least," said Wesley's voice. "But Ms. Morgan would like some coffee."

The line clicked off. Harmony stared at it and sneered, "Some coffee and a punch in the face. How is she even gonna drink it? She's DEAD!!!" Talking to the dial tone. She put the receiver gently down, and went to do her duty.

Lilah was still sitting on the bed although, to Harmony's relief, she had her clothes on. Okay, fine, he was hot, but didn't she have any appreciation for professionalism? Harmony couldn't even be bothered to spill coffee on her, because it wasn't like she would even feel it. Some immortality she had. Harmony wouldn't trade with her for a million bucks, even if it meant she got to see Wesley naked.

She turned to leave. "Harmony." Wesley spoke in that quiet but distinct tone and, okay, it sometimes gave her kind of a shiver. "Not just yet." He gestured. "Come closer." She obeyed. "Give me your hand." Harmony felt Lilah's eyes on her and wondered if Wesley was playing some kind of joke, and if so, which of them he was playing it on. She put her hand into his, and his long fingers traced hers and stopped on a tiny silver ring with a pink stone. "Is this what I think it is?"

Harmony beamed. "Sunnydale High School. Class of 1999. I keep it on to remind me, wherever I am? There's a place that's worse. Or –" she frowned. "There used to be before it collapsed or whatever."

A smile twitched on Wesley's lips. "May I?"

"Yeah. Sure." By the time she was done speaking, he had already slid the ring off. "Just for the sake of --"

"Old times." Wesley opened his palm and let the ring lie in it. Holding it out to Harmony, he said, "I don't have my glasses. What is this inscription?"

"Oh that?" She leaned forward. "That's the school motto. It says –"

He moved so quickly that it took her a second to grasp. The swift movement of his other hand, slipping out of its hiding place in the sheets. Is Wesley grabbing my breast? Totally unexpected, but not entirely unexpected -- wait. Unique among vampires, Harmony knew exactly what it would feel like. Spike had done it to her once, jamming sharpened wood into her chest, except that she had been wearing the Gem of Amarra, and the wound had simply closed again. So she felt the pain and understood and just had time to look him in the eyes. Her mouth formed a "W –" For "Why?" or maybe for "Wesley!"

And then, Harmony had no time.

*  
Wesley looked up at Lilah. "Are you happy?"

He had never understood why eating shit would make you want to grin, but that was the figure of speech, and it was what she was giving him right now. "Absolutely."

Wesley tossed the stake over his shoulder. It rattled and crashed against the morning's teapot. "I don't see what that proves. It was just a vampire. That little disposal operation was the only thing I've done in the past two years that I fancy my father would approve of."

Lilah shrugged. "Just working the excess sentiment out of your system. I felt like you might be getting attached.

"I wasn't."

"Fine then. I just didn't like her."

"Is that all?"

She made a face, and leaned down to brush dust off the satin. "Get rid of these sheets."

"Good-bye, Lilah."

The door closed hard behind her. Wesley opened his hand, and looked at the small, silver band. He squinted at the inscription. "Sunnydale High School" and, around the inner rim, "The Future is Ours." Smiling, Wesley set it on the table beside his bed and let it sit there, a relic from another world.


End file.
